Out from Under
by something like human
Summary: A/U. Gohan looks back at his life after Cell. Things seem to change vastly when Chichi yells at her sons for the last time. He makes a decision that may cause some consequences he never dreamed possible. (rating for later chpts)
1. Leaving

Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ.

A/N: This literally came out of nowhere. I was sitting near a stream, leaning against a tree in the middle of nowhere with a notebook on my lap and a pen in my hand.  This is the result.  By the way, the title is from an Incubus song. The song isn't in the story but the title fit.

Warnings: First person P.O.V. (only for me is that a warning!) and A/U.

It's a little ironic how things happen.   I mean that I never would have imagined that I'd be sitting here writing about a turn of evens that I never dreamed were possible.  I guess it's just my human side showing: The need to communicate and reminisce.  That and someone said that I talk too much when they're not listening.  So I decided to write this to no one in particular or perhaps not anyone at all.

I guess you could say that it all started a few years ago.  I was about fourteen.  I say 'about' because I'm not too sure of exactly how old I am.  Considering my day in the Room of Spirit and Time, I'm a year older than I should be.  But then again, I spent time off planet.  Without getting into complex details of physics, if one sets a clock, puts it in a spaceship, have it leave Earth for a time, and then return, it shows that the clock was in space for less time than a clock would say if it stayed on Earth.  That is all beside the point; my chronological age is irrelevant.  I have seen and been through too much to be considered a child.

That was part of the problem, I guess.  I mean, how do you handle some one who could survive on their own since age four?  That was my mom's problem: I didn't fit in her happy, little, human mold in her happy, little, ideal family.  I was Earth's strongest warrior but she thought I should have still been hanging on her apron strings.  I'm sorry but that is not what I was or am.

It all came to a head one day when Goten and I walked in the door after I had taken him out to begin training.  Fighting had been a taboo subject since Cell.  Mom had not allowed me to train or Goten to start training.  I had decided that my baby brother needed to be taught some at least to be able to control himself better.  Being half-Saiyan made him quite strong and he was always breaking things unintentionally.  Mom constantly yelled at him for it but it wasn't his fault.  At least if I trained him to control himself, he wouldn't get in trouble for that.

"And where have you been boys?"  I remember her asking.  I was going to lie and tell her that we went for a walk but Goten had to open his mouth.

"Gohan showed me how to do this…and this…and this!"  Each 'this' was punctuated with a different strike or kick.  I don't remember exactly what he did because I was too busy watching mom's face get redder and redder.  I put my hand on Goten's shoulder and moved him behind me slightly.

"How long has this been going on?  How many times have you went behind my back and disobeyed me?  You know I forbade you from fighting!"  She yelled.

I stood there mutely taking it like I had every other time she yelled at me.  She hadn't scared me since I was five years old and realized that I was stronger than she'd ever be.  I figured that it would be like every other time she deemed my behavior unsatisfactory behavior for a human child.  She would say how bad I was, how bad all my influences were from the rest of the warriors, and how I would never amount to anything.  This time, however, it was different.

"Can't you behave like a normal human?  Fighting is what took you and Goku away from me.  It is what killed him.  You know, you're the reason your father never came back the last time," her voice was like a frozen dagger piercing my heart.  I could tell that what she had said was not something just blurted out in the heat of an argument; she really meant it.  I couldn't handle it; I went Super Saiyan right there in the kitchen.

"You think fighting is what killed dad?  Our fighting is what kept everyone else on Earth alive.  But you can't see that, can you?  All you think about is yourself and your perfect little human family.  Well guess what mom, we're not perfect, we're not human, and we're not even a family any more.  I'm leaving and taking Goten with me," I said in a stern voice that was not raised to the level she used to yell at us.  I reached down and picked my little brother up telling him to say goodbye to his mother.  He just waved his small hand at her.  As I turned to walk back out the door, she screamed on last time.

"You're both monsters!  You're just like your father and that other nasty man: Inhuman monsters!"

I turned my now light eyes to look at her now cowering on the floor.  If that was what it meant to be human, then I did not even want to be half-human.  "You're right, we're not human.  Just like dad and Vegeta, we are Saiyans."  
Upon saying that, I left.  I flew off and did not look back.  I only stopped when Goten started squirming in my arms.  When I set him down I noticed something that I hadn't seen back at the house.  When I looked down at him with my Super Saiyan eyes, he looked back up at me with matching ones.  My baby brother had gone Super Saiyan at four years of age.

"Goten…you're a Super Saiyan, " I had stammered out as if it was the only strange thing that had happened that day.  "When did that happen?"  
He knew what a super Saiyan was, I had told him about it before.  I even dared showing him once.  He rubbed his hand through his now golden locks and shrugged in a gesture that was uncannily like our father, "I guess when mommy was yelling at you and said bad stuff about you and daddy."

I picked him up and hugged him.  Dad would have been so proud of his youngest son.  I knew that I was.  I missed my dad and I knew that Goten would miss his mother, too.  I say 'his mom' because I don't really think of her as mine.  Even way back on the space ship to Namek, Bulma was amazed that I never cried for my mommy.  I had asked her why I should cry for someone I didn't need.  All she did was stare at me for a minute and then laugh nervously.

Goten didn't need his mom either.  Sure he was only four but he's a four year old with Saiyan blood.  Dad survived on his own from infancy until Grandpa Gohan found him and then again after he died.  I was only four when Piccolo left me all alone in the wilderness.  Gotten was the same age but he wouldn't be alone – he had me.

We made camp that night. I showed my brother how to start a fire and keep it going.  While he tended to the fire (more like poked it with a stick), I foraged for some food. A huge fish and an armload of apples later, we were both ready for sleep.  I went to lie down on the soft grass and found the small form of my brother cuddling right up against me.  I watched as he slowly drifted off to sleep and the gold faded from his hair.

I kept myself in Super Saiyan. The power it gave me just felt right.  I had to be strong now – not just for myself but also for Goten.  And looking back, it was just another way to defy _her_.

We fell into a comfortable routine: sleep, eat, and train.  It was simple and enjoyable.  Goten learned quickly.  Soon he could fly, fire ki blasts, and even stay Super as long as he was awake.  Days turned into weeks and before I knew it, we had been on our own for three months.  We were ragged, we were dirty, we were barely better than wild animals, but we were happy.

I was happy but I was acting like a child.  I soon started to realize that Goten's pants were becoming too short on him.  It wouldn't be too long until he completely grew out of his clothes.  I couldn't turn to any one else to buy him some and I couldn't make clothing appear like Piccolo could.  I had to buy clothes for the both of us and didn't have any money.  I figured that I looked old enough for someone to hire to do odd jobs on a farm or around a house.  I was perfectly capable of doing it but I had one problem.  I didn't think anyone would take me seriously when I looked like a wild boy.  I needed to clean myself up and get some normal clothes.

So I went back to our old house one night.  I snuck into my bedroom window quietly.  Looking around, I realized that she had touched nothing in the room that I shared with Goten.  I grabbed my backpack from under my bed and went to the closet.  I picked out Goten's largest sized outfit I could find and then looked through my clothing.  I settled on a baggy pair of jeans and a tee shirt.  I also grabbed two thick flannel shirts that used to belong to Dad.  Mom would have noticed if I took our good coats but not the two old shirts.

I had just enough room left in my pack for one thing.  I walked over to my bookshelf and picked up my favorite book.  I planned on starting to read it to Goten.  I was about to leave when I noticed my photo album on the shelf.  I leafed through it briefly smiling at the glossy images before me.  I pulled out a picture of dad and I when I was still young enough to have my tail.  I also took another one that Dr. Briefs had taken right before the Cell games that had everyone in it.  I chuckled slightly at the laugh we all got at Trunks from the future holding the baby version of him.  Trunks ended up wetting himself, if you know what I mean.  

Almost as an afterthought, I grabbed one last picture.  It had Vegeta standing in his classic pose with his arms crossed over his chest and a glare on his face.  The tough guy image would have been perfect except for Trunks wrapped around his one leg and Goten around the other.  If Vegeta were as nasty as _she _thought, then none of us would have lived through that picture – especially me.  I was the one who took it.

I gently tucked the pictures in the book and put it in my backpack.  Out of curiosity, I walked over to the door.  When I tried to turn the knob but it was locked.  She had probably locked it as soon as we had left, some how it did not surprise me in the least.  I just flew out the window and back to my sleeping brother. 

I fell into a fitful sleep and when I woke at sunrise, I got the shock of my life.  Goten was already awake and he was running around in a circle like a dog chasing his tail.  The only thing was, he was really chasing his tail.  Somehow the fury appendage had grown back over night.  I was slightly shocked until I remembered that Piccolo said that mine had a tendency to grow back repeatedly when I was a small child.  I laughed at his antics.  When he finally caught a hold of the elusive regenerative, he glared at me for making fun at him.  Then he laughed at me when I tried to stand up.  My balance was all wacky because it seemed that Goten's tail wasn't the only one that grew back the night before.

It took me all of two minutes to become accustomed to my tail.  I couldn't figure out why they had grown back but at the time, I didn't care.  I decided right then and there that we would never cut off our tails again.  I understood that mine was originally removed out of safety; we still had the moon back then.  But Goten's was a different story, I got the impression that it was done out of spite.  Then again, it could have been _her_ false logic that if he didn't have a tail then he would be human.

We spent most of that day training.  We were basically trying all of our techniques to see how they would change with our tails back.  In late afternoon, when the shadows were getting long, I sat my brother down and explained things to him.  I told him that I needed to get some money so we could stay living on our own.  I told him that I was going to see if I could work for some people.  He was told that when I was gone that he was supposed to continue his training but he was also allowed to explore.  He just had to meet me back at camp when he sensed me coming.  He was not supposed to go near people at all.

Of course, curiosity got the best of him.  He had to know what I had in my backpack.  I showed him his clothes but I did not let him change into them.  He needed them to last as long as possible because I did not know how long it would take until I earned enough money for new ones.  

I then tried to start reading to him.  I only got a few pages down before a frog got more attention from Goten than the story.  I let him play because he'd only have one childhood.  He needed to play as much as he could before he got too old.

The next morning, I got up early and bathed in a stream.  I then got dressed in my fresh clothes.  I realized something as I cut a hole in my pants to thread my tail through.  I did not look like a normal human boy if I had a tail.  I then remembered Vegeta when he first came to earth.  He had kept his tail wrapped around his waist.  So I just fed the furry, brown length through my belt loops like it was just a brown belt.  I laughed; it made me feel like Vegeta with my tail like that.

I ate breakfast with Goten and then got up to start my journey to civilization. My little brother ran up and hugged me before I could go anywhere though.  I patted him on the head and told him to go and play.  As he turned to run, I swatted playfully at his bottom.  He just turned quickly and stuck his tongue out at me.  I laughed and set off to start my day.


	2. ice cream

Disclaimer: *Meeps Akira Toriyama*

A/N: Ask and ye shall receive! Here's part two of "Out from Under" albeit really late! It's finals week right now so does that qualify as an excuse?  (End of the semester crunch…ugh.) Thanks for all the responses you guys have sent me already! I loved reading every one of them (and I hope to see more! Hint hint). And before anyone says something, I am not very creative when it comes to naming characters…but I guess you'll see. 

As I flew towards the nearest house, I wondered how I would explain myself to my prospective employers.  I did not think people would believe that I left home with my baby brother because my mother could not accept that we were half alien.  I opted for the standard run away story.  The famous "my mom's new boyfriend beat me so I ran away" story sounded more believable.  I would leave Goten out of the story.  Most people would not like the idea of leaving a four-year-old to fend for himself in the wilderness.

I tried the first house I came to.  The elderly couple that came to the door was not too surprised to see a kid at their door.  It seems that kids from the city regularly ventured out to their house for employment during the summer months.  The man just handed me a brush and a can of white paint.  He then sent me out to their picket fence. 

I worked quickly and was done by noon.  I went to tell them that I was finished and the woman gave me a sandwich and a couple of cookies.  I ate quickly but put one of the cookies in my pocket for Goten.  The man came into the kitchen to find me stuffing my face.

"Ya done a'ready, kid?"

"Yes, sir," I replied as politely as I could. 

"Heh. It usually takes someone all day to do that.  You probably did a half-assed job of it," the man replied looking at me over his spectacles.  He handed me a few bills and some change.  "Since you did it in half the time and half-assed, you get half of what I said I'd pay you."  
I numbly took the cash.  I thanked the woman for lunch as I left.  I walked down a country road looking for the next house.  I went over and over what had happened to see my mistakes.  I decided that people expected things to take a long time to do and the longer it too, the more I'd be paid.  At the next house, I would do better. I can say that I really did do better then, too.  I took all afternoon to fix a garden lattice and touch up the paint on it.  I also got full payment for it and a welcome invitation to return in the morning.

I went back to our camp that night a few dollars richer and a cookie for my baby brother.  I immediately got knocked over by the little guy hugging me tight.  I chuckled and hugged back.  I only let go when I felt something crawling in my hair.  Reaching up I removed the critter from my person. It was a tiny lizard.

"Goten, I think this belongs to you," I said giving him the green reptile.

"You found Howie!"

I did not bother to ask.  If he wanted to name his little 'friend' that ridiculous name, he could.  I just handed him the cookie and went to find some dinner.  Over our fish dinner, Goten told me of his day in great detail.  He was especially excited to tell me how he saved Howie from a giant bird.  After dinner, we sparred until the sun set and the stars came out.

When Goten fell asleep, I counted the money I had earned.  It was barely enough to buy a cheeseburger at a fast food restaurant.  It was not much but it was a start.  Maybe on the weekend (I assumed people did not want to hire me on Sundays) I would take Goten into the city to buy him some ice cream or something.

The next few days were much of the same.  We ate; we slept; we sparred; Goten played; and I worked.  The money did not pour in but I did not think I was doing too badly considering the work I was doing.  And let me tell you, I was getting really good at fixing fences.

Sunday morning came quickly.  I made Goten get up and bathe.  Then I told him to dress in his good clothes while I still kept our destination secrete.  I combed my fingers through his unruly hair trying to tame it as best as I could.  When I had myself ready, we took to the air.  My little brother never questioned where we were going.  He always had this blind trust in me, even after everything, he still does.

When we got to the nearest city, the little guy looked around wide-eyed.  I had forgotten that he had never really been around other people that much.  Sure, he had met people outside the family before.  He had practically lived at the Briefs and there were many people in and out of there.  But he had never been around a city full of people that he did not know.  For the first time I could remember, the youngest Super Saiyan was frightened.

He grasped my hand tightly and looked up at me with blue eyes.  I smiled reassuringly at him.  I told him that no one could hurt him, he was a Super Saiyan but if anyone tried, I would protect him.  He smiled and said that no would ever even try to hurt me because it would not work.  In his eyes, I was his big brother and that made me completely invincible.  I did not think of how wrong that would prove to be.

We walked down a street that to me was very busy for a Sunday.  I would learn later that the scene before was actually just a fraction of what goes on during the week.  Goten's fear was quickly being replaced by curiosity.  He was never one to stay down for long.  It went from him tightly gripping my hand for security to me doing the same just so I would not lose him.

We rounded a corner and I spotted our destination.  I pointed to the sign with a giant banana split on it.  He squealed as only a four-year-old could.  He practically drug me the rest of the way to the little shop.  The other customers chuckled as I tried to control the little bundle of excitement. 

I ordered after letting Goten pick out what he wanted.  The woman working at the counter had been quite taken with my little brother and put sprinkles on his rainbow colored cone without charging me for them.  I paid and thanked the woman and took my chocolate cone.  We worked on preventing the frozen treats from melting on to our hands with variable success.  By the time he finished, Goten's face, hands, and shirt were covered with ice cream.  I laughed at him as I grabbed a napkin to start cleaning him up.

"Here, use this," the woman from behind the counter said as she walked over to us with a washcloth in her hand.

"Thank you, ma'am," I replied taking the damp cloth.

"Please don't call me ma'am, it makes me feel like I'm a grandmother or something," the woman chuckled.  "Call me Jeri."

"Pleased to meet you, Jeri," my brother said trying to bow while I was wiping his face.  All it ended up doing was smearing more ice cream on his face.

"Gohan, you got my face all dirty!" Goten exclaimed glaring back at me.  I could not help but laugh at the little guy.  Sometimes my brother is just too cute to be a Saiyan.  The woman also laughed at him.

"Now, I think you did a pretty good job yourself getting ice cream on your face," she said.  "Does this sweet little boy have a name or am I going to have to call him 'ice cream face'?"

"Gohan told me not to talk to strangers," he replied innocently.  Unfortunately, he did not realize that he was talking to one in saying he could not and that he gave her my name.

"So, Gohan?  Does he have a name?" Jeri said emphasizing my name so that my brother might catch on that he had said it.  The boy, being true to his heritage as the son of Goku, remained clueless.

"This little devil here, I my baby brother, Goten," I said cheekily. The little guy put his hands together and bowed again.  This time he had another complaint though.

"Ew! My hands are sticky," he said as he extended them into my face.  Jeri laughed as she took the washrag from me and began expertly cleaning the boy.  From subsequent visits every Sunday, I learned that Goten reminded the woman of her son who was now away at college.  Every week she would tell us another story of how her boy, Ben, would get into some sort of mischief.  She would never ask us anything about our own lives – nor did she ask about our parents.

In those following weeks, we settled into a routine.  It was not as fun as it originally had been before I started working but it was not too bad either.  I would leave in the morning after eating with Goten to work at whichever home or farm I could and then return in the evening to spar with him and eat dinner.  I would then read to him by the light of our fire and we would sleep under the stars.  Every night, Goten would curl up by my side for comfort.  It reminded me, sadly, that even though he was mature enough to stay out of trouble all day while I worked, he was still a four-year-old child who needed someone to protect him from the dark.

Another thing I was beginning to notice about our little situation was that as hard as I tried, Goten was not learning to read very easily.  Sure he did not have his mother basically chaining him to a desk until he did advanced trigonometry but I had thought that he should at least be able to read a little.  He had learned a little at home but even then he had been slower than I had been.  This had also caused a lot of grief to his mother.  I probably should not have pushed the issue but the truth be told, I am not a very good teacher for little kids.  I could teach him fighting easily but that was probably because as a Saiyan he was predisposed to learn that kind of thing.  Reading, writing, and arithmetic was another story.  Goten was very much like Dad, brilliant when it comes to fighting but slow when it comes to common sense and intellect.  I decided that when he was old enough that he was going to have to go to school.  I did not have the time to teach him extensively myself when I was working all day.  I think in those first few months of being on our own, I aged at least ten years.  Raising Goten myself was a huge responsibility.  Living on my own in the wilderness as a child was one thing but living in the wilderness and raising a child was another.


End file.
